Yes. It is with a heavy heart and a hanging head that I admit that today I actually watched the American Stuffers episodes on Animal Planet.

You have to understand, though. The satellite signals on the movie channels were spotty and there was nothing on network television worth watching. Plus — and honestly, no disrespect to the Ross Family and their employees — but the show is just like a really bad car wreck. You know you shouldn’t look but once you do you just can’t turn away from it.

I didn’t watch all of the episodes today. I watched “The Dog Named Precious,” “The Cat Without a Nose,” “The Hairless Dog,” and “A Tornado Hits Romance.” I will say that I’m very glad Daniel was able to put the cat’s nose back on before its owner came to pick it up (and no one noticed the problem). The skin coming off of the Chinese Crested (which the owner proudly stated she’d paid $250 as a puppy) though was a close one. And her having the dog’s testicles removed to have sperm harvested by a company in Washington just had me rolling on the floor. Yeah, I’m not a biology major, but I can’t imagine them living in there for very long, much less long enough to ship them to Washington from Texas (where they drove from to get the dog freeze-dried).

The pet chicken being freeze-dried, though, had me baffled. I know people keep chickens as pets. I have friends that have had good and bad things come from doing that. But if the chicken dies on its own, I’d be thinking about disposing of it correctly, not how it’s going to look in the center of the dinner table as a centerpiece. Okay, the lady with the chicken actually said she was going to decorate her chicken coops with all of her pet chickens after they die and she has them freeze-dried. And she named all of them after characters from Jersey Shore. So, take from that what you want.

I can say that I was moved by the lady who had her Yorkie for 14 years and met the crew from Xtreme Taxidermy at the Big Buck Classic Hunters’ Convention (where most of the other attendees were grossed-out by the pets on display). She’d had a lot of loss in her life and having her dog preserved as a way to help her cope may not be for me but I sure hope it helps her. Plus, she wants the dog buried with her when she passes away. Sadly, the dog will look better longer than she will, but at least they’ll be together.

And I also have to admit that the story about the dog that had been skinned by another taxidermist and left the crew of the shop with a puzzle on how to make him look good again was interesting. Mostly because they were very careful to not tell the lady who brought in the dog how badly butchered the job the previous taxidermist did. I was glad to see that they were able to take that idiot’s mistakes and fix it so the lady was happy. Now I just hope she doesn’t watch the episode and see exactly what was done to her dog.

So, yeah, I let the redneck in me have a few laughs and sat agog at some of the things said/done on the show. There aren’t any future episodes coming (it was cancelled), but Romance, Arkansas isn’t too terribly far from my family’s old stomping grounds. I’m pretty sure I could find it if I felt the need.

All day I have been listening to the local police scanner. I keep it on because if there’s an emergency that isn’t being broadcast on the local news channels, I can usually get some information from the scanner. Plus after years of having worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and disaster preparedness/response person, I’m just addicted to it.

So today’s noteworthy broadcasts have been about a small black bear that has wandered into town. It’s not hurt anyone; it’s not gone into the residential areas; and it’s trying to find its way back to the woods. At first someone thought it was a dog when it was near a residential area but it stayed over by the local airport (not an overly busy one). It has been wandering around and I’m not worried about it coming over into the area where I live because it would have to cross a large Interstate highway plus the busy traffic at the intersection that crosses over it. The state conservation agents have been working with the county law enforcement to track the bear and make sure that it keeps heading towards the woods.

Sadly, though, all the yokels in town have been coming out in droves to see it — especially after the story was aired on the local news. Now the police are being called by the businesses in the area next to the Interstate highway because people keep trying to get closer and closer to the bear so they can take pictures of it. Some have brought their dogs with them, like the conservation agents need that little bit of “help” with a bear that really doesn’t want to be where it is in the first place.

Right now it’s up a tree next to the local Pizza Hut. It wanders between one of the banks, the Pizza Hut, a furniture store, and a Captain D’s restaurant. I’m sure it smells plenty of trash from that area it would love to eat. Hopefully the conservation and law enforcement agents will get rid of the crowd before the bear hurts itself. The poor thing just wants to get back to its home (with a snack to-go if it can grab one).

Here’s an idea — if you want to see a close-up photo of a bear, pick up a book! If you want to see a bear in person, go to a zoo! If you see a bear in the wild, then lucky you — but for cryin’ out loud, stoptrying to get in its way!

Well….at least now there’s something else to listen to. Some drunken fool is chugging a Mountain Dew and whiskey outside a local grocery store and has pushed carts into the major 4-way intersection of town. Now that sounds more like an average night.

Well, I just heard from my Equal Rights counselor regarding my long “quest” to find out why I wasn’t reappointed to my job and to try to get it back. I still have another phone call coming from her when she receives the message of whether or not the person she is dealing with has the right to reappoint me or not. At the moment, however, I couldn’t give crap one if they try to reappoint me to my old position. There’s no way I could possibly stand to work for these people after what I was just told they said about me and my disability!

So, quick rundown before I have to go grab another Xanax. The main Equal Rights Officer I worked with last year to get my reasonable accommodations to have Celeste come to work with me stated that I had proven that I had a disability and with all the letters from therapists, doctors, co-workers, and the trainer of my service dog that I had proven the need and should be allowed to bring her with me. My assistant Cadre Manager signed-off on all of the paperwork and sent me a memo stating how in the future I was to notify her when I was deploying with Celeste and the rules/regulations that I would have to follow for having her in our field offices. Basic stuff, all approved, all signed, and copies (both physical and electronic) are saved for my records.

Then, the counselor contacted my Cadre Manager and his assistant to speak with them on why I wasn’t reappointed to my job. He stated that he’d heard my name but didn’t know who I was. He also stated that he knew that there were issues last year with me bringing Celeste and problems at the office (which there weren’t any from her, just from others who wanted to pet and play with her) and that she was not a “service animal” but was a “comfort dog.” Really?? Since when did he become so educated on what constitutes the difference between a SD (service dog) and an ESA (emotional support animal)?? And this is a man I’ve only ever spoken to once since I started working for him in 2009 because he never returned my emails or phone calls and I always had to go through his assistant.

And speaking of his assistant, she was very quiet throughout the interview. I have her signature approving my request for reasonable accommodation but she told the counselor that all of that was handled at headquarters by the ERO officers.

I was right!! They were discriminating against me when they didn’t reappoint me. The Cadre Manager stated that my “comfort dog” would cause a problem and I couldn’t be deployed or retained because of it. Also, he said that he had to drastically reduce the number of people he had employed but he only released two people in my section. I guess all of the people who I trained last year will be able to go on to have full employment and success now.

I’m not expecting to get my job back because he said he’d be happy to write a letter of recommendation for me (which was the easy-out option given if they weren’t going to keep me) and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me back anyway now that I know what I know. But, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I’m shocked. I’m flabbergasted. I can’t believe that someone would be so bold to basically state outright that my disability is the reason they didn’t keep me — especially since this is a FEDERAL position and there are FEDERAL laws to protect the disabled.

You can be sure I’ll keep things updated as more info comes in. However, for anyone who thought I was just uselessly chasing a dream, I’m not upset and I’m not going to dance around with my tongue sticking out and my fingers in my ears saying “I’m right and you were wrong!” I’ve always had a tenacity to grab hold of something and see it all the way through to the end, regardless if I’m right or I’m wrong. I’m glad that I have that now because I have proof that I was right this time. And anyone who feels that they’ve been wronged should be brave enough to stand-up for what they believe in and fight for what is right. I hope I’ve been a good example.

Now I need to try to relax before I pop a vein in my head. That would kind of make going on to a formal complaint process difficult.

Yes, I noticed that I made sure my title was grammatically correct. OCD has checked-in for the night!

Anyway, I do wonder what goes through my dogs’ brains when they’re dreaming. I can look over at the cat who is sound asleep at the moment and she never moves until she wakes up. However, I can watch either Celeste or Harley and sooner or later they’ll start to run in their sleep, snore loudly, or sometimes even bark as if they’re trying to say something.

Celeste is five years old and has had a lot of experiences with and without me. She was a show dog and has traveled around the country and also worked as a service dog for a lady in a wheelchair (who sadly didn’t know how to care for her even though she’d had service dogs before). So, I could see some memories coming back to her mind and perhaps she sees things she remembers.

Harley, on the other hand, has been with us since she was nine months old. She was abandoned and raised for a month at a farm before they took her to the local Humane Society because they couldn’t afford to keep another abandoned dog. She’s been on trips with us (vehicle only, no planes yet) and has romped around in the yard or at a dog park. Most of her time she’s comfortable on the couch and when given the opportunity will watch car races or other dogs running on television. Harley also lived here with my service dog Cody who passed away in 2010. She was there when he died. She also has a lot of his habits and mannerisms because he made sure that he taught her how to act and didn’t let her get too out of control.

Cody would snore loudly and run when sleeping too — but he only came to live with us when he was much older. He had been a puppy mill breeder dog that had been abandoned on the side of the Interstate when he’d gotten to old to make the owners more money. We took him in and even though he had no idea how to play or act like a normal dog, he learned commands quickly and was eager to please because he loved being loved by someone instead of just ignored. And he still had the gumption to put the cat in her place when he came to live with us and she wouldn’t shut up one night. He just closed her mouth with his and looked at her as if to say, “See? Quiet is better.”

When Cody would snore loudly and move as if he was running when he was asleep, I could always imagine that he was reliving something that had happened before we had him. Maybe it was running away from the handlers at the puppy mill. Maybe it was finally running free when they first got rid of him before he began to struggle to find food and water in the sweltering heat of the summer. I would always hope that his dreams would include meeting us and enjoying a nice walk or just being cuddled.

I’m watching Harley’s legs move while she’s asleep as if she’s running for her life. Maybe there’s a rabbit or a squirrel in her dream? She loves to chase them in the yard, though I don’t think she’d have any idea what to do with one if she caught it. She’s running and running and you can hear her snorting loudly with every “step” she takes. Whatever it is, she’s either thoroughly enjoying it or making damned sure that she gets away from whatever she doesn’t like.

I know humans put too much emotion into our pets. We talk to them as if they’re people and try to read their facial expressions and actions like we do non-verbal communications from other humans. But I think it would be fun if we could see about what our dogs are dreaming. Finally catching the ball; scaring a flock of birds; or maybe just laying on the couch getting their tummy rubbed. Anything could be a fascinating dream for them.

LONG day…. Took Harley to have her yearly “shearing” at the groomer. She grows so much hair during the winter you could almost make enough wigs/toupees for those little hairless dogs. Then they wouldn’t get so cold all the time. We also went to our favorite gaming store and sold them a few items for store credit. Just some old books that we didn’t like but that their customers will love buying. And the credit can stay there until the next Warhammer 40K tournament or when we need to buy something for someone’s birthday, etc.

Also started shopping for a new phone since mine is having battery issues. I first went to a store run by the company with whom I have my service. They said that they don’t make stupidphones anymore. I said that I knew he was lying because (1) I’d seen an ad for one and (2) there were some hanging on the wall in the store. He, of course, wanted to show me every smartphone in the place but I told him I wasn’t going to pay a bunch more per month for the privilege of having a phone that can do a lot of things I can’t afford for it to do nor would I use it for them. I guess I should have also taken a photo (the one “fancy” thing my stupidphone can do) of all of the basic phones we saw at a large electronics retailer in town as well. And if I wanted a smartphone I could get it there for even less than the service company was advertising! But, no, I did not replace my beloved stupidphone.

When Harley’s grooming appointment was over, we went to pick her up and I asked the groomer to grind Celeste’s nails so that I won’t have to clip them for a bit. Celeste was a show dog before she became a service dog but you would have thought that no one had ever touched her feet before when she started trying to escape from the groomer. Fortunately, the lady had a great attitude and just chased her around the grooming table, keeping one paw in her hand at all times, and got it done. Another of the ladies working there asked me if she could know why I have Celeste and when I told her she was thrilled to hear someone else has a service dog for psychiatric issues. I gave her my name and number and the name and number of Celeste’s breeder/trainer because the lady and her husband are trying to get a service dog for him to use. I wish them the best of luck because I know that Celeste has helped me more than I could have imagined!

Hopefully tomorrow will be relaxing. I know Husband can use a nice relaxing day after working hard all week. And Youngest Son is now home from school so I’ll find plenty of chores/activities for him to complete!

Today I got a call from an EEO/ERO person regarding my previous “quest” to find out why I’d not been reappointed to my employment position. She asked a lot of questions; I gave a lot of answers; I forwarded a LOT of emails; and she said she’d be making some phone calls and would get back in touch with me.

I have no idea if it’s really going to make a difference or not. This has been such a stupid thing that I almost don’t care which way it turns out. But, note that I said “almost” in that last sentence. I’m still very proud of the work I did with that agency and believe that I still have/had many years left to help others.

If nothing else, it gives me one more step towards closure. Who knows what will happen?

Just my typical Type-A/OCD self — have to see it through all the way to the end regardless of the outcome.

Today I had another therapist appointment. She began the session by trying to tell me about Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show” last night and how she really liked this “black female comedian who must be new.” I mentioned the name Wanda Sykes and she said, “Yeah! That’s her!” I began to list a number of television shows, movies, and voiceovers she’d done before and my therapist still had no idea who she is but thinks she’s the funniest person she’s heard in a long time. I agree, Ms. Sykes is funny. But then my therapist attempted to recount the entire conversation and all of the jokes between Jay and Wanda, but she couldn’t remember all of the bits.

She sat there trying to tell me jokes and repeat what had made her laugh so hard but couldn’t remember all of the punchlines or even some of the stories. What she did tell me didn’t make any sense at all.

Then she began to tell me the story of how her dachshund had escaped from her house when a friend was dog-sitting and the very intricate details of how turkey hunters and neighbors (she lives in the country, so “neighbor” means “lives within a mile of you”) had seen the dog but weren’t able to catch it. On and on the story went and she was stunned that the dog had been gone for 15 days and had survived. The vet says it has tapeworms now because it was probably eating rabbits while it was away. She couldn’t believe that her dog, a pampered pet, could kill something.

I reminded her that dachshunds were bred for hunting and ratting. They’re low to the ground and have short legs so they can follow their prey into the burrows. And, most importantly, that it’s a dog and when hunger sets in it’s not going to debate over whether or not the food comes from a can or hole in the ground. It will go back to its nature and hunt, especially if it’s a breed originally designed for that.

She kept on-and-on about how shocking it was and could I possibly believe that her dog (which I’ve never met) could do something like that and then, oh by the way, did I know that her pig was getting bigger? I had to stop for a second and ask her to repeat herself. She was telling me that the small piglet she’d been bringing into the office because its mother had stepped on it and it had a large wound that needed to be cared for was doing much better and is getting bigger. She also asked me what she should do with such a large animal. She’s raised pigs before, so she knows that sows can become VERY large. I suggested that she make it a banquet centerpiece but she said there was no way she could eat it. She might consider breeding it but she doesn’t know what to do with such a large animal.

Hey….here’s a fun fact — if you breed a very large animal, its young will also become very large animals!! If you think you don’t have room for one now, having a bunch of others isn’t going to help your space issues!!

I was about to ask, “Am I paying for this time?” when she finally asked me a question about how I was doing. I asked if she was telling me these disjointed tales as an example of what it’s like to talk to me and she said that she didn’t realize she’d talked so much. She then asked me why I’m not writing a novel and wanted to know more details from some of the posts that the voices have been writing and suggested I take them and write a book with them.

Yeah….people really want to read the Great American Novel about a plain kid with a dysfunctional family who’s bat-shit crazy. Sure, it will be the top of the bestseller list in the category of “Most purchased for use in lighting fires” or “Most purchased as cheaper alternative to toilet paper.”

So, my one-hour session didn’t quite last that long today but at least it gave me subject matter about which to post tonight. I was too depressed to type much today anyway and still am. However, the goal of having a post every day is intact. My OCD is still sated for another 24 hours.

Today’s been busier than I expected. Woke up at 5 a.m. (as usual) and smelled something awful outside when I let the dogs out to go “walkies.” Only Celeste came back stinking like she’d rolled on a skunk or something. Had to give her a bath quickly because she was stinking-up the house in record time. Husband went outside to look for whatever it was she got the smell from but there wasn’t anything and the smell had left.

So, I crammed her in our small bathtub and tried to get her clean as quickly as I could. Not as easy as it sounds. She’s in the process of shedding her winter coat, so there’s lots of hair that liked coating the walls, the tub, the floor, me, and the drains. I was finally able to get the stink down to a tolerable level (just barely noticeable if you stick your face into her fur). Then I spent about 30 minutes trying to get all of the hair into the trash and off of everything to which it was sticking. I still have no idea what caused it but I’ve never wanted to own my own professional dog wash so much as I did this morning! There’s one self-serve dog wash table in town but they’re not open at 0-Christ-Hundred in the morning. If I had my own, it would be open when I need it!

Then I went to my therapist appointment today. I took her the three page list of things I can and can’t do at work and what makes things easier and harder for me to work. She asked if I’d applied for disability benefits. I said I hadn’t because I didn’t believe I needed them. She held up the list and said that if I had that many things I should have applied years ago. That’s something I’ll wait and see what happens as I continue to look for answers on why I wasn’t rehired from my old job.

Tonight I watched a neat show on PBS called Radioactive Wolves. It’s about the wildlife that has returned to the area around Pripyat (outside of Chernobyl) and how the radiation has affected them. Very interesting show. I know it’s kind of weird but I’ve always wanted to go to Pripyat and see the ruins left behind after the 1986 explosion. It’s amazing how nature is taking back the area where people lived for so many years and doing so even after all of the damage done.

I then watched a segment on NBC’s Rock Center about how Big Box Marts (like Costco) trick people into overspending on items and buying things they never meant to buy before they went into the store. And that’s a reason why I don’t have a membership card to any of these places. The lure of buying something you’ve never seen before but just have to have is too strong at times. I don’t need 5 pounds of mayonnaise but I guarantee that if the price is right, I know people who will find a reason to make more egg or tuna salad sandwiches than could ever be eaten at one picnic.

Now, I’m tired and I’ve kept to my rule about posting each day, so I’m gonna relax and probably watch more television. And check the dog. And maybe think about taking her for another bath tomorrow. And making sure I’ve got something with me before I let them out in the morning to make sure that if there’s an animal making the stink that it doesn’t anymore.

I was hopeful a few days ago when I received a response from one of my elected officials regarding my concerns about why I wasn’t reappointed to my old job. They sent me a nice email:

April 18, 2012

Dear [Me],

I have sent the enclosed correspondence about your situation to [Governmental Agency Acronym]. The enclosed copy is for your files.

If you have any new, relevant information, please send it to:

Name and address of possibly underpaid staff member
Office of Desperate to be Re-elected Official
Mailing Address to “Local” Office

Or

Fax number that no one uses anymore because of e-mail and the Internet

Please be assured that we are continuing to work on this matter and will contact you as soon as we receive a response. If you have received this message by email, it is not possible to reply by email. Please contact my office by phone, fax, mail or online via webform on our website at webaddress.PLEASE-vote-for-me.gov.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other issue.

Sincerely

Quite odd that if they can send me an email that I can’t send another in return. I thought that was how email worked. All these years using the Internet and somehow I missed that.

Anyway, I opened the “enclosed correspondence” to see what it had. Here’s what I found:

Dear Sir or Madam,

The purpose of this correspondence is to inquire about non-reappointment of [Me, but with my name in all capital letters].

[Me] contacted [Desperate to be Re-Elected Official] out of concern for this case. Her current mailing address is [none of your business].

Her email address is [also none of your business].

Her date of birth is [REALLY none of your business]. I have attached a signed Privacy Act Release Form for this case. (NOTE: The Privacy Act Release Form had all that info on it, so why waste time in a “letter” repeating it?)

According to [Me], she was recently not reappointed to her [old job title] position after almost 8 years of work without personnel or performance issues. As she has not received an answer from [Governmental Agency Acronym] regarding the specific reason, she believes that it is due to the fact that she has obtained a certified service dog to assist her. I have attached the email she forwarded to our office where she quotes the letter she received from [Governmental Agency Acronym], as well as her signed Privacy Release form. (NOTE: Didn’t they already say they’d attached this? Who writes these things??)

I respectfully request that your office give each and every due consideration under the law to the request of the constituent. Please update me by email about the status of this application or the reason for this denial so that I can inform the constituent.

Best regards,

Name of possibly underpaid staff member

So, the letter was off and now all I had to do was sit-back and wait for an answer. My attempts at getting a straight answer from supervisors (and, I thought, friends) didn’t work. My attempts at going through the Equal Rights and Equal Employment Offices had met with little fanfare and, as of this date, still no response. Now I was going to get somewhere!

Today, an email arrived from the political official’s address. Inside I found:

April 20, 2012

Dear [Me],

I have received the enclosed correspondence from [Governmental Agency Acronym]. The enclosed copy is for your files.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other issue.

Sincerely

Okay, a stock response with a quick flip of the ol’ web address where donations are happily received. But, it had only been 2 days! I knew something was fishy. The government never works that fast. Not for regular taxpayers like us, anyway.

So I opened the attached “response” and here’s what I saw:

Good Morning [Possibly Underpaid Staff Member],

Thank you for your recent inquiry about [Me]. She is concerned about not being reappointed as a [old job title and acronym for it]. On behalf of the [Actual Name of Governmental Agency and Acronym], the following is what I can share at this time.

March 24, 2012, marked the end of the current appointment period for all [old job acronym]. We were asked to evaluate our current work force needs based on [Governmental Agency Acronym]’s mission. This required making some difficult decisions. Clearly we had people who had contributed to our mission for a long time and were good employees. However, our current and projected staffing needs meant we needed to create a more nimble organization, which required making some very hard choices. At this time, it was determined per the Stafford Act and your Conditions of Employment, to allow [Me]’s appointment to expire. {Me] is free to apply for an appointment within another Cadre.

Once the new [New Job Title] program (what the [old job acronym] program used to be called) is accepting applications, the non-appointed [old job acronym] (your constituent in this case) could apply. The details of this are still being worked out, and we will keep you posted. I hope this helps and let me know if you have any additional questions.

Best regards,

External Affairs Specialist, [Area for which I used to be employed]

Hmmm….something seems familiar. Why, yes! That whole secondparagraphwas nearly identical to what they’d sent me previously (and you can check my prior posts to verify it)!! They didn’t even change the word “your” before “Conditions of Employment” in order to make it read correctly! They completely avoided the reason why I was asking for clarification and simply whipped together the same old spiel they’d been given to placate those who weren’t rehired and sent it. And the Desperate to be Re-Elected Official’s staff didn’t even bother to check that it wasn’t an actual response to my actual question before slapping the Official’s name on the email and sending it to me.

Oh, sure, it looks “better” with them saying that I can apply when the new program opens. However, those who were reappointed also have to apply and if they’re hired, they don’t lose their accrued sick days and their pay could go up but cannot go down. Those of us who were not reappointed have to start from scratch, regardless of how much experience we have, and lose all of the sick days we’d saved working over the years. So, technically, someone who had just been hired prior to the “reappointment” period who was retained could be making twice what I made and have no experience but if I get rehired to my “old job” I’d have to start at the bottom of the salary tree again. Yeah…that sounds really fair.

I immediately went to the website of Desperate to be Re-Elected Official and left them a nice message that what I got was a whole lot of nothing that I hadn’t already sent copies of to them. And, no, this person will not be receiving my vote in the election — even though this fiasco had nothing to do with my previous intentions to not vote for them.

Oh well…. I’m still on the hunt for answers. Yeah, I may be just banging my head against the wall, but it’s better than sitting and wallowing in self-pity or wondering what I did wrong (which was nothing).